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IC 9041 



Bureau of Mines Information Circular/1985 



Improved Underground Rerailing 
Apparatus 



By John R. Bartels 




UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 



75! 



^INES 75TH AV^ 



Information Circular/9041 

A 

Improved Underground Rerailing 
Apparatus 

By John R. Bartels 




UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
Donald Paul Hodel, Secretary 

BUREAU OF MINES 
Robert C. Horton, Director 




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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: 



B artels, John R 

Improved underground rerailing apparatus. 

(Information circular ; 9041) 

Supt. of Docs, no.: I 28.27: 9041. 

1. Mine railroads— Accidents. 2. Mine railroads— Equipment and 
supplies. I. Title. II. Series: Information circular (United States. 
Bureau of Mines) ; 9041. 



TN295.U4 [TN336] 622s [622'. 66] 85-600072 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Abstract 1 

Introduction 2 

System requirements 2 

System description 3 

Rerailing procedure 5 

\/f Time trials 7 

Dq Conclusions 8 

\ 

I 

I 1 . Sy s tern components 3 

2 . Placement of air-lift bags 4 

3. Raising car above track 5 

4. Placement of bridge and roller carriage 6 

5 . Setting crib blocks 6 

6 . Centering car on track 7 



V) 



i 

o 



ILLUSTRATIONS 





UNIT OF MEASURE 


ABBREVIATIONS USED 


IN THIS REPORT 


cu ft 


cubic foot 


min 


minute 


ft 


foot 


psi 


pound per square inch 


gal 


gallon 


s 


second 


in 


inch 


yr 


year 


lb 


pound 







IMPROVED UNDERGROUND RERAILING APPARATUS 

By John R. Bartels ' 



ABSTRACT 

This report discusses an improved method for rerailing underground 
railcars devised in a joint effort by the Bureau of Mines and Hoesch 
MFD. This improved method utilizes a lightweight hydraulic ram with 
hand-pump activation to move a bridge-mounted roller carriage in con- 
junction with steel-reinforced air-lift bags. This method provides a 
lightweight portable system in which only two workers are required to 
perform the mine car rerailing operation. Because of the very narrow 
confines in underground mines, use of overhead cranes and other surface 
rail techniques is not possible. This new system is designed for very 
low profile work, and provides the necessary lifting force from light- 
weight compressed-air bottles. 



^Civil engineer, Pittsburgh Research Center, Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA. 



INTRODUCTION 



A serious mine operational problem has 
been the dangerous task of rerailing mine 
cars after accidents and frequent track 
"hopping." The current practice for re- 
railing mine cars is extremely hazardous 
and inefficient. Rerailing devices in 
use include commercial roll-on plates and 
hand jacks. In some cases, methods in- 
volving wooden props and pry bars are em- 
ployed. The disadvantages of these meth- 
ods can be listed as follows: 

1. Most current methods require pull- 
ing the derailed car with a locomotive 
back onto the track, with resultant dam- 
age to the road bed. This method is not 
effective on curves and situations where 
the wheels are too far from each rail. 

2. Jacks require extensive raising and 
lowering of cars, block supporting, and 
leveling to manipulate the cars back on- 
to the track. The method requires very 
strenuous manual effort. The close con- 
fines in a mine makes this an extremely 
hazardous procedure to the workers doing 
the rerailing. 

3. The use of wooden props involves 
wedging and jamming of wood ties between 
the mine rib and car, and then pulling 
the car with the locomotive. The purpose 
is to generate a thrust component in a 
direction that will lift the car back on- 
to the track. This method is extremely 
dangerous in that actual thrust compo- 
nents generated are unpredictable and 
unstable. 

The surface rail industry, which con- 
stitutes the majority of rail equipment 
and equipment development, does not have 



the peculiar rerailing problems of under- 
ground rail systems. This is due to the 
accessibility by rail-mounted or tire- 
mounted lifting cranes for correcting de- 
railments. There is not sufficient head- 
room in mine entries to permit crane 
rerailment. When surface derailment oc- 
curs in tunnels , roll-up plates and 
jacks, similar to those used in under- 
ground situations are utilized, but these 
occurrences are not frequent enough to 
cause much concern. 

The extent of the problem can be seen 
by the number of injuries sustained by 
mine personnel while engaged in rerailing 
operations during the past 5 yr: 

1978 129 1981 136 

1979 189 1982 138 

1980 227 

The frequency of derailments and the 
large number of injuries associated with 
them indicate that improving the current 
rerailing methods would not only reduce 
accidents but also improve overall mine 
efficiency. 

It is believed that this project has 
resulted in a device that can be easily 
carried by workers into the mine in parts 
and assembled at the site of the derail- 
ment. Furthermore, it can be hydrauli- 
cally and pneumatically powered, rather 
than manually operated, to provide the 
lifting and sliding forces necessary to 
quickly perform the rerailing operation. 



SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 



Recognizing the hazards of underground 
rerailing, the Bureau set out to identify 
the requirements for a safe system to be 
used in underground mines. These re- 
quirements are listed' as follows: 

1. Each piece of equipment must be 
capable of being carried by no more than 
two people with a load limit of 60 lb for 
any one person. 

2. The equipment must be capable of 
providing the lifting and positioning 
forces without requiring strenuous effort 
from the worker. 



3. The equipment must be capable of 
utilizing local power sources or provid- 
ing its own power source. 

4. It must be very low profile to en- 
able working in the narrow confines be- 
tween mine floor and car bottom. 

5. It must be rugged enough to handle 
the harsh underground environment. 

6. It must be simple and safe to 
operate. 

7. It must be low cost. 

8. It must be easily field serviced. 



With these requirements in mind, a 
search was made of commercial suppliers 
of rerailing equipment. No domestic sup- 
plier could be found, but the West German 
company Hoesch MFD had available some 
promising equipment that had been in use 



with the European light rail industry. 
Contact with the company officials indi- 
cated that they would be interested in 
helping tailor this apparatus for use in 
underground mines. 



SYSTEM DESCRIPTION 



By combining two previously unrelated 
technologies currently in use by the sur- 
face mining and rail industries, a system 
was developed to rerail underground track 
vehicles using a safe, simple, and reli- 
able method. The technologies used are 
steel reinforced rubber air-lift bags, 
manufactured by Vetter Engineering, 2 and 
a hydraulically activated roller system, 
manufactured by Hoesch MFD, that has been 
scaled down to accommodate the confined 
mining environment. This combination 

^Reference to specific manufacturers 
and equipment does not imply endorsement 
by the Bureau of Mines . 



raises the derailed car onto a roller 
mechanism and centers the car back, on the 
track without the strenuous physical ef- 
fort or hazardous uncertainty of conven- 
tional methods. 

The rerailing system (fig. 1) consists 
of the following: 

1 roller carriage, 16.5-ton carrying 
capacity (78 lb). 

1 oil hydraulic displacing jack with 
screw-type couplers, 11-in displacement, 
and 6.6-ton capacity (17 lb). 

1 steel countersupport , light construc- 
tion (17 lb). 

1 auxiliary hand pump, 29- by 9.6-in 
base, 11 in high, with 2.1-gal oil 






FIGURE 1. - System components. 



container, integral 4-way valve, and 
4,000-psi pressure (55 lb). 

1 pair hydraulic hoses, 16 ft long, 
with screw-type couplers (26 lb). 

1 rerailing bridge, low profile, 7 ft 
long, 3-3/4 in high (81 lb). 

2 airbags, 30.3 in by 26.8 in each, 
1-in collapsed height, 30 cu ft at 90-psi 
maximum (40.5 lb each). 

1 dual-control safety unit. (6.3 lb). 

1 pressure regular, manually adjustable 
to 90 psi (3.7 lb). 

2 safety pressure hoses, 16 ft 4 in 
each, 1 clear and 1 green (2 lb each). 

2 safety pressure hoses, 32 ft 8 in 
each, 1 clear and 1 green (3.2 lb each). 

1 railway connector (2 lb). 

2 portable compressed-air bottles, 80 
cu ft each (31.4 lb each). 



The rerailing system is compact and 
weighs 440.2 lb. Rerailing is safely ac- 
complished by a crew of two in less than 
15 min. The system is low profile and 
should be effective in the lowest coal 
seams. The air-lift-bag system allows 
the lifting mechanism to be placed to 
balance any off-center loadings. The op- 
eration of the equipment is simple and 
should require little operator training. 
Rerailing can be accomplished effectively 
on all mine track vehicles up to 30 tons 
gross weight under typical rerailing con- 
ditions, including derailments on curves 
and derailments up to 5 ft away from the 
track, that are too far off the track for 
conventional rerailing techniques to han- 
dle effectively. 




FIGURE 2. - Placement of air-lift bags. 



RERAILING PROCEDURE 



The first step in rerailing a vehicle 
is to place a pair of steel-reinforced 
rubber air-lift bags under the vehicle 
(fig. 2). Because these air-bags are 
collapsible to 1 in, they can be slid un- 
der rail equipment. The airbags are in- 
flated using lightweight (aluminum) por- 
table compressed-air bottles or any other 
convenient compressed-air source. The 
airbags easily lift a 30-ton car above 
the tracks so that rerailing can commence 
(fig. 3). 

Next, a low-profile lightweight (alumi- 
num) bridge is placed across the tracks. 
A roller carriage and bidirectional hy- 
draulic ram connected by the hydraulic 
lines to the auxiliary hand pump are 
attached to the bridge using a steel 



countersupport (fig. 4). Crib blocks are 
set on the roller carriage to support the 
vehicle at the desired height above the 
rails (fig. 5). 

The airbags now can be deflated lower- 
ing the vehicle onto the roller carriage. 
The vehicle is then centered on the track 
by the use of an auxiliary hydraulic hand 
pump (fig. 6), which activates the bidi- 
rectional ram. 

When the vehicle has been centered on 
the track, the airbags are inflated to 
raise the vehicle off the roller, and the 
rerailing equipment removed. Finally, 
the airbags are deflated and removed. 
The entire rerailing operation is safe 
and simple. 







FIGURE 3. - Raising car above track. 




FIGURE 4. - Placement of bridge and roller carriage. 




FIGURE 5. - Setting crib blocks. 




FIGURE 6. - Centering car on track. 



TIME TRIALS 



Underground time trials utilizing the 
improved rerailing apparatus were con- 
ducted at the Bureau's Safety Research 
Coal Mine (Bruceton, PA). A diesel loco- 
motive was derailed on a straightaway 
and on a curve. Two separate crews that 
had received a 5-min training session 
on the equipment were asked to rerail 
the locomotive under both sets of de- 
railed conditions. The average time to 
unload the equipment from a transport 
vehicle, unpack the equipment, rerail 
the vehicle, and then repack and load 
was about 15 min for each crew. The 
fact that one of the test conditions was 
on a curve, a situation that would pre- 
sent serious problems using conven- 
tional underground rerailing techniques , 
made little difference in either time 
required to complete the rerailing or the 



difficulty of the task. The average 
times for the rerailing operation were 
as follows: 

Unload 3 min 35 s 

Rerail locomotive 7 min 

Repack equipment 4 min 17 s 

The tests were repeated with a new crew 
using the Bureau's surface rail facility 
and a 16-ton electric locomotive. Tests 
results were similar to those for the 
first series: 

Unload equipment 4 min 

Rerail locomotive 7 min 15 s 

Repack equipment 3 min 50 s 



All tests ran smoothly with no spe- 
cial problems or equipment failure. The 
equipment seems to be universally adapt- 
able to most types of underground rail 



vehicles. The rerailing equipment opera- 
tion is simple enough that mine personnel 
should have no operational problems in 
implementing this system. 



CONCLUSIONS 



Implementation of the improved rerail- 
ing system will dramatically improve the 
efficiency and safety of underground re- 
railing operations. Current methods of 
rerailing using roll-on plates and crib 
blocks are so manually intensive and haz- 
ardous that the industry should be quite 
receptive to this improved method. It 
is safe, simple, and reliable, and the 
equipment is easily transported and used 



by two people with only minimal training. 
Under test conditions, the entire rerail- 
ing operation was accomplished in approx- 
imately 15 min. The system is current- 
ly available as a package from Railquip 
Inc. This system, with minor modifica- 
tions, or a similar system based on the 
data specified in the section "System Re- 
quirements" should be adaptable to most 
underground mining environments. 



5VU.S. CPO: 1985-505-019/20,092 



IN T.-BU.O F MIN ES,PGH.,P A. 28090 







° 4$ 











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